


Pillow Talk

by lostboywriting



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28155873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostboywriting/pseuds/lostboywriting
Summary: Joshua's going to have to tell Sanae his plan. Sanae's not going to like it. This might be part of the point.
Relationships: Hanekoma Sanae/Kiryu "Joshua" Yoshiya
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6
Collections: The World Exchanges With You 2020





	Pillow Talk

**Author's Note:**

  * For [surskitty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/surskitty/gifts).



"I've made up my mind," Joshua says, stretching and rolling over onto his back in Sanae's bed. Sun streams in through the window; it's a nice day, allegedly. Joshua shuts his eyes, letting the sun warm his face, remembering what it's like to have a face that can be warmed--but it's not enough, any more than the pleasant hour he and Sanae have just spent has been.

"About?" It's a neutral question, but Joshua can hear the narrowed eyes in Sanae's voice, and knows his own innocent tone hasn't fooled him any.

"Shibuya."

He senses Sanae go still next to him--not only still in his body, but in the energy around him--and likes it. Or at least he feels a little thrill of pleasant terror, which is about as close as he's going to get to liking it; it's about as close as he's going to get to feeling anything, these days. Sanae's a cat that's just spotted a particularly audacious mouse, when he goes still like that, and Joshua dreams about claws raking through skin and flesh without mercy, taking him to pieces and _making_ him feel.

Dreams, but does not ask. Sanae wouldn't, or Sanae would, and Joshua's not sure which would be worse, the rejection or the genuine--because it would be genuine, if Sanae gave Joshua what he doesn't ask for--loss of control.

When Sanae speaks, it's with the cat's deceptively casual laziness: "Didn't know there was anything there to make up your mind about, boss."

If that's true, Sanae's not as sharp as Joshua knows him to be, but Joshua indulges the pretense, rolling his eyes and putting on a petulant tone. "It's gone off key, for starters. _Again._ " He raises one hand, sketches a conductor's beat in the air. "And off tempo. Off everything, honestly--it's a mess, Sanae. You're telling me you haven't heard it?" Granted, Sanae's soul isn't inextricably linked to Shibuya the way Joshua's is--in this and this only, Joshua's senses are keener--but the angel has good hearing and a strong sense of the city's music, nonetheless.

Sanae gives no indication whether he's heard it or not. "So you fix it," he says instead, mildly. "You and Shades have done it before."

Joshua can feel the subtle shift in frequencies around him, placating. It must be at least half a Producer's job, he thinks, mollifying tempermental artists, and he supposes there must have been a time when it worked on him. It doesn't anymore. Part of him misses it; the rest of him can't imagine why. "We've been fixing it since I got here, Sanae." A long time now, long enough that if he wants to know the details he has to stop and think: what year was it he died? Why did it seem so important, that he join the Game? He'd wanted something back then; he can't quite remember what it was now, though he thinks that he's looking for whatever it was when he and Sanae spar, when they bicker, or when--as today--the sparring and the bickering end with the two of them pleasantly tangled in Sanae's bed.

"Nobody ever said the job was easy, J."

Joshua can't help chuckling at the shift: a moment ago he was _boss._ He appreciates Sanae's transparency on that front, at least. "No, but they--" a sidelong glance to meet Sanae's eyes, just to make it entirely clear which _they_ he's talking about-- "did say it was worth doing."

He feels the words land like bullets, and Sanae's lazy front evaporates. An instant later Joshua is pinned to the mattress, Sanae's voice a growl next to his ear. "What are you planning, Joshua?"

It's a nice effect. Not as good as claws, maybe, but it still makes Joshua grin, because provoking his Producer means he's won the moment. "You're an artist, Sanae. Aren't there times a drawing just isn't working, whatever you do to it?"

Sanae pulls his head back to look at him. Joshua reads something new--something off-balance and genuinely uncertain, shading into pain--in his eyes, and his grin broadens, that thrill coursing through him a little brighter. Oh, he's won this moment.

Maybe, by the time this is over, he won't even have to ask.


End file.
